1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an optical disk driving apparatus, and more particularly to an optical disk driving apparatus to be built in an automotive vehicle, and adapted to selectively drive a plurality of optical disks such as for example compact disks to move around its central axis, and reproduce information from data recorded in the optical disks.
2. Description of the Related Art
Up until now, there have been provided a wide variety of conventional optical disk driving apparatus of this type one typical example of which is shown in FIG. 28.
The conventional optical disk driving apparatus 900 is shown in FIG. 28 as comprising a box-shaped housing 910 to be built in an automotive vehicle, and an optical disk driving unit accommodated in the box-shaped housing 910. The box-shaped housing 910 includes a front plate 911 having formed therein a loading slot, a rear plate 912, first and second side plates 913 and 914, a top plate (not shown in FIG. 28), and a bottom plate 915. The front plate 911 is in parallel relationship with the rear plate 912. The first side plate 913 extends from the front plate 911 to the rear plate 912, while the second side plate 914 extends from the front plate 911 to the rear plate 912 under the state that the first side plate 913 is in parallel relationship with the second side plate 914. The top plate extends from the front plate 911 to the rear plate 912, while the bottom plate 915 extends from the front plate 911 to the rear plate 912 under the state that the top plate is in parallel relationship with the bottom plate 915.
The optical disk driving unit includes first to third motors (not shown in FIG. 28) for respectively producing rotation torques, a shutter plate (not shown in FIG. 28) disposed in the vicinity of the loading slot of the front plate 911 for the purpose of opening and shutting the loading slot of the front plate 911, a shutter plate driving mechanism (not shown in FIG. 28) for driving the shutter plate (not shown in FIG. 28) to move with respect to the loading slot of the front plate 911, a first cam gear (not shown in FIG. 28) for transmitting the rotation torque produced by the first motor to the shutter plate driving mechanism, and a loading roller 920 disposed in the vicinity of the loading slot of the front plate 911, and adapted to carry the optical disk in response to the rotation torque produced by the second motor.
The optical disk driving unit further includes a plurality of trays (not shown in FIG. 28) which are disposed in layers at specific intervals in the box-shaped housing 910, a push lever (not shown in FIG. 28) for pushing the optical disk 990 requested by the operator out of the trays, an optical disk guiding mechanism (not shown in FIG. 28) for guiding the optical disk 990 pushed by the push lever to the turntable 940, and a second cam gear (not shown in FIG. 28) for transmitting the rotation torque produced by the first motor to the optical disk guiding mechanism.
The optical disk driving unit further includes a base plate 310 pivotably supported by the box-shaped housing 910, a base plate driving mechanism (not shown in FIG. 28) for driving the base plate 310 to pivotably move with respect to the box-shaped housing 910, and a third cam gear (not shown in FIG. 28) for transmitting the rotation torque produced by the first motor to the driving mechanism.
The optical disk driving unit further includes a turntable 940 having a central axis, the turntable 940 being operative to have the optical disk requested by the operator move around a central axis thereof under the state that the central axis of the optical disk requested by the operator is aligned with the central axis thereof, a supporting member (not shown in FIG. 28) for rotatably supporting the turntable 940, and a plurality of vibration isolators (not shown) for isolating the supporting member 330 from outside vibrations by intervening between the supporting member 330 and the base plate 310.
The optical disk driving unit further includes a supporting member fixing mechanism for fixing the supporting member to the base plate without being isolated from the outside vibrations by the vibration isolators 321, 322, and 323, and a fourth cam gear (not shown in FIG. 28) for transmitting the rotation torque produced by the first motor to the supporting member fixing mechanism.
The optical disk driving apparatus thus constricted as previously mentioned, however, encounters such a problem that the rotation torque produced by the first motor tends to be untimely transmitted to each of the shutter plate driving mechanism, the optical disk guiding mechanism, the base plate driving mechanism, and the supporting member fixing mechanism in response to the outside vibrations.